Wednesday, July 31, 2019

What happens when you cut off that sweet Mueller morphine drip

Fox News: "MSNBC's 'The Rachel Maddow Show' plummets to fifth most-watched cable news show."  I actually watched the evening after Mueller testified and Maddow was slathering lipstick on that pig with a wide trowel.

11 comments:

Sandor Bak said...

A more plausible theory: Old white people like racism.

Rachel's advertising revenue has risen in 2018-19, while Tucker's, Sean's and Laura's profits have tumbled. Even the most loyal viewers can't keep buying apocalypse gold and pillows.

Eric said...

"Rachel's advertising revenue has risen in 2018-19, while Tucker's, Sean's and Laura's profits have tumbled."

The careful wording of this statement tells me all I need to know.

Sandor Bak said...

Don't be modest. You knew all you needed to know before you knew anything about it.

Rachel Maddow's ad rate doubled from 2015 to 2017, which was before she was near or atop any cable news race. It has certainly increased since then along with her viewership, and cannot be much beneath Fox News' prime time ad rate in 2019.

Problem is, even if Fox still has the higher ad rate, it doesn't do much good when companies have stopped buying. The exodus of Fox News advertisers over repeated racist bullshit has yet to be reversed. Rachel Maddow gets a full slate of national advertisers every night, while more than half of Fox News' prime time ads are for other Fox News programming. And that's just shifting Fox News' own money from one bookkeeping column to another. Some of the remainder of Fox's ads are for bulk rate sponsors paying lower per-spot rates, such as the ever-popular MyPillow.

Thus it is mathematically improbable that Sean Hannity's higher-rated show (or Carlson's, or Ingraham's) is as profitable as Maddow's. Which is a ridiculous fail, since Fox has more viewers and the two news channels' audience demographics are very similar.

The reason for this brings us back to my original point, which I'd phrased as "Old white people like racism," but in terms of the ad revenue should have been "Old white conservatives like racism."

Eric said...

Wow, look at all the numbers. I see 2015, 2017, and 2019.

Brother, we already had this discussion months ago. The per-show revenue is dwarfed by subscriber revenues, of which Fox News utterly trounces other cable channels. The fact that MSNBC suckers some advertisers to pay for both of Maddow's viewers is nothing to crow about.

Sandor Bak said...

"Advertising revenue doesn't matter to a cable channel." With shrewd against-the-grain insights like that, the networks should be clamoring for your consulting talents.


And if it's all about the affiliate fees, then why were you so tickled when Maddow "plummeted" to being the 5th-highest rated show?


Also, you're mistaken: Fox News commands nowhere near the highest affiliate fee in cable television. For starters, Fox News gets less one-seventh the subscriber revenue that ESPN gets. They're well behind Disney. They're not even competitive with TNT.

Eric said...

Let me help you out with your comparison skills. Google can be hard.

"Fox News built its enormously profitable enterprise on the back of being the most-watched news channel. After more than 15 years at the top, it commands nearly twice the affiliate fees of CNN and more than triple those of MSNBC."

https://variety.com/2017/tv/features/cable-news-wars-cnn-msnbc-fox-news-1202462928/

"Fox News now sees $8,286 per :30 spot compared to $7,843 before the election. CNN went from $5,122 to $5,467. MSNBC saw the strongest growth going from $2,553 to $3,139 per spot. This jump in unit cost also illustrates why MSNBC’s growth seems stronger over the past year."

https://www.adweek.com/tvnewser/heres-how-much-it-cost-to-advertise-on-fox-news-cnn-and-msnbc-in-2017/352837/

"Seems stronger" is code word for "has risen" the same way the Baltimore Orioles have closed on the Yankees in the AL East.

Sandor Bak said...

I see 2017 in your post, too.

Now let me help you out with some Google.

August 2018:
https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/323156/msnbc-cnn-make-scatter-pricing-gains-fox-still-t.html

"Fox News Channel still commands the top spot in terms of viewership, with rising ad revenue, but MSNBC and CNN have been making sharper 30-second commercial pricing gains in the first half of this year.

In that time, MSNBC has seen rocketing price hikes for prime-time programming -- up 129% to now average $13,550 for a 30-second commercial in June. It was $5,927 in January.

CNN was 31% higher to $9,451 during the January-to-June period (from $7,192), while Fox rose 22% to $10,095 (from $8,285.)"


The two articles you majestically Googled were written before Fox News went overt racist and lost the majority of its advertisers. $8,286 a spot (or $10,095) is worth slightly less to the bottom line when no one is buying the ad spots.

I assume you took fifth grade math. Would you rather sell six ads at $10,100 apiece, or eighteen ads at $13,500 apiece? If you're not sure, I bet your Google dexterity can find the link to calculator.com.

Eric said...

2018 is so last year. Let's go to this month:

https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/338827/cable-tv-news-viewership-slows-in-july-fox-news-k.html

"Fox inched up 1% to a Nielsen-measured 2.44 million prime-time viewers, as well as a 1% gain in daytime viewers to 1.38 million. It was down 15% in adults 25-54 to 378,000; off 10% in daytime 25-54 viewers at 237,000.

MSNBC lost 10% in the month in total prime-time viewers to 1.5 million, and 7% off in daytime viewership to 852,000. The network was down 28% and 29% in prime time and daytime 25-54 viewers -- to 222,000 and 125,000."

Golly why the drop, MSNBC?

"Much of the current overall downward trend in cable news TV viewership occurred after the release of The Mueller Report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and obstruction of justice issues by the Trump Administration."

That sweet morphine drip is gone and now Maddow can't beat the rating of "The Five" that airs at 5pm when people are leaving work. Keep telling yourself this is going to translate into 2019 revenue.

Sandor Bak said...

“1. Ha ha, look at the ratings!
2. No wait, what counts are the affiliate fees!
3. Hold it, I just located some outdated ad rates!
4. On fourth thought, it IS the ratings! Sweet morphine drip, sweet morphine drip!
P.S. If the sponsors ever come back, Q4 of 2019 is gonna crush Rachel so hard, I hope.”

Forget your pride, forget that your bravado crashed and burned, and face facts.

Fox News has 165% the prime time audience that MSNBC gets. They always win the ratings in aggregate, and nearly always win by time slot.

Impossibly, they’re converting that big, consistent win into just one-fourth of the outside ad revenue that Rachel Maddow gets, even with her sweet morphine withdrawal shakes.

It’s an ongoing, sucking financial disaster that’s literally costing Fox News millions of dollars per week.

Racism must be a drug even better than morphine.

Eric said...

"Impossibly, they’re converting that big, consistent win into just one-fourth of the outside ad revenue that Rachel Maddow gets, even with her sweet morphine withdrawal shakes."

Where's the evidence of this? Just makin' stuff up.

Eric said...

Hey, here's a timely article from...today. Variety: "Gains in Affiliate Fees Power Fox Corp. Earnings"

https://variety.com/2019/biz/news/fox-corporation-q4-earnings-affiliate-fees-1203295712/

"Affiliate fees are the bedrock of Fox Corp. Total affiliate revenue climbed 12% on a full-year basis. For the fourth quarter, revenue hit $1.4 billion, or more than half of the company’s total revenue in the quarter."
"The Fox News and Fox Sports cable channels drive the lion’s share of earnings."

Let's recap:
1) Fox commands affiliate fees three times MSNBC.
2) Fox commands advertising rates 164% over MSNBC (2017 numbers, before MSNBC collapse)
3) Post-MSNBC collapse: in July, Fox News gained viewers while MSNBC lost 10% of its audience.
4) Maddow's primetime ratings are now lower than a Fox News show watched by retirees and shut-ins.

You seem to think a preponderance of evidence is shifting rationales. It's not. It's all part of the big picture.

Finally, it's axiomatic that when a liberal is losing an argument he/she calls you racist.